


Ouroboros

by MatchaMucous (EloquentMxLoki)



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Cannibalism, Fallen Angels, Heavy Angst, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, One Shot, Other, POV First Person, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Swearing, Trauma, Vomiting, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-08 00:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19860604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EloquentMxLoki/pseuds/MatchaMucous
Summary: There is no more warmth once you’ve Fallen, the last of it you feel is unbearable incineration as you plummet through ozone and cloud; a cruel cremation you’re awake for.***Crowley is having a rough night and things can only get worse when he thinks about what he has lost. When you are no longer apart of The Host you are the most alone you'll ever be. WHUMP!





	Ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> Category marked M/M as that is what a lot of people see them as, however I very much agree they're Nonbinary/Queer!
> 
> PLEASE READ THE TAGS!  
> This is a heavy fic and deals with trauma processing and graphic wing gore.  
> There will be suffering!  
> This is a one shot.

Some nights it is merely a dull ache.

Tonight it’s a violent Death rattle in my ribcage.

As if perhaps this vessel is in fact hollowed out and not a functioning conglomeration of bones and sinew and viscera. 

It’s cold inside this body even though it’s not cold inside my flat.

I can feel it again, especially when I’m alone. 

That sudden unyielding dread at being so distant, so out of reach of Them that it hurts.

And I’m used to hurting.

And it’s not like I can’t handle pain.

If anything I was built to endure; ceaselessly clawing at the walls of my own skull to get back to a place I don’t want to be whilst my body marches onwards unflinching.

That’s the punishment.

Because you can ply yourself with alcohol and distract your vessel’s senses all the while your spirit won’t stop shrieking like a maimed creature in distress because you’ve never been so utterly isolated. 

There is no more warmth once you’ve Fallen, the last of it you feel is unbearable incineration as you plummet through ozone and cloud; a cruel cremation you’re awake for.

Some hypothesise that it’s a severance from The Host, but it’s not; that would imply you are merely cut off and discarded.

This is more so a cleaving of your very essence into thirds.

Part of you they selfishly keep for Themselves, the most glorious parts, so you can never feel whole again. 

Part of you they chew up and spit away, like a predator with a mouth full of feathers, so you can never be who you once were. 

And what remains is hurtled down towards the dirt, blighted and broken.

Pathetic.

Tonight my form shudders as if it remembers something bigger than itself; I can’t make it stop; once you know The Host there is no unknowing it.

You did this to yourself.

You deserve thissssss.

I start as the shards of crystal bounce off my glasses, the shot of whiskey shattered in my shaking fist.

I look down at the collection of splintered glass fragments lodged in my palm and wish it stung more than my Unforgivable ailment.

My hand is wet with blood, I can’t feel it.

I flex my fingers desperately, fixating on the twinkling razored fractals, they’re almost beautiful, so bright. 

We were so bright once.

I. 

I was. 

Only there was no I. 

Only We. 

Fuck.

I need to get out.

I need-

I can only think of him.

I get in the Bentley. There’s blood smeared on the steering wheel as I turn towards the bookstore. I can’t see the lines of the road, my eyes are frantic and unfocused.

Holy! Holy! Holy!

The choir echos uproariously, so much so that even Freddie Mercury can’t drown Them out. 

Sssssstop it.

I don’t remember parking. I don’t remember walking into the store.

I do remember he wasn’t there.

Alone.

Alone.

Unforgivable.

Fuck.

And then it starts, the spinning of a thousand feather quill tips against skin, drilling, drilling hard as if into bone.

Wings erupt from my back, uncontrollably twisting in an unnatural manner and sending stacks of precious tomes airborne in all directions. 

Sssssssorry.

Sssssssorry.

Sssssssorry.

I can’t-

I’m grasping, grabbing, yanking at feathers that reek of ash and cinders and failure and failure and failure and failure and- 

Handfuls of barbed obsidian and thick blood clots littering the floor.

I can’t feel it.

Can They feel it?

Nails dig deep into alula and then scapulara, digging aggressively for something I can’t find buried in my own flesh, can’t feel, can’t quite remember- 

I just need-

My eyes are burning, like acid welling up that I cannot blink away.

Where are my glasses? I was just wearing them? I was just-

Don’t look at me!

And it’s sssssso cold and my blood is sssssso hot-

Aziraphale?

I just need- 

Another torturous twist and my left wing dislocates, I can feel the telltale grind of bone against bone as it- 

When did I hit the floor?

Just take them back! I don’t need to fly!

Feathers twitching and vibrating against bone, etching, etching away- 

So disobedient- 

So unclean-

Take them back-

Take them back-

Take me back-

Pleasssssssssse

And I’m weeping because I don’t know how to stop.

And I’m suffering because I’ll never feel Their hands or Their warmth all over me again.

And I’m biting down on my own tongue because They mustn’t ever know that I do-

Blood sputtered up through trembling lips- 

I miss Them.

I made stars for you.

I wove nebulae for you.

I was sssssssso bright for you.

Shoulders hunch and lurch forwards, shattered wing bones jutting out at ugly angles, bent and bedraggled primary feathers scuffing the floor-

Wretched! Wretched! Wretched!

I’m all scabs and scar tissue and- 

“Crowley? Crowley, what have you done?” 

I want to say I heard him but I didn’t.

Only the unending ringing of the Almighty’s bells in my ears as I drag myself along on my belly- 

Don’t look at me!

Instinctively I want to wrap myself in a curtain of ebony shame but only one repulsive mound of bloody muscle and torn feathers makes a move to cover me; the other stays a limp mutilated mess barely spasming by my side. 

In that moment I want to reach inside myself and wrench out all the parts of me They have touched, but then I realize it’s all the parts that I have touched which are tarnished, spoiled, black.

What’s left?

Don’t let Them see- 

Don’t let Them see-

Only the worst parts belong to me.

And then I’m doing it. I couldn’t tell you why.

Swivel eyed and panic stricken shoving feathers in my mouth and distraughtly trying to swallow-

Throat fighting every bristled intrusion I force down between rasping gasps for air- 

Air I don’t even need to sustain- 

To endure- 

I’m all scabs and scar tissue and-

“Crowley! Crowley, stop!”

I can feel his hands on me, like several strikes of electricity it makes me yelp and shrink away.

I have to-

Nonononono-

I have to!

I can feel my jaw unhinge, painfully expanding in a way this vessel can barely accommodate while I’m in this state-

“Crowley!”

And then we’re an entanglement of limbs as he grapples with me on the floor, his hand crushingly on my slim wrist-

I’m choking on my own wing as I feed it further down my throat, teeth compelled to gnash on tendons-

“Darling, please!”

His eyes are wet. 

I feel my heart stop. 

My whole form violently shudders, throat convulsing as I heave up the remnants of once-was-wing; raw bone with clinging sinew and the searing heat of stomach bile- 

Silence.

No ringing bells.

No clamorous choir.

Silence.

Just my Angel sobbing.

“Sss-ssssorry”

I barely manage from my lacerated crimson mouth; word grating out as if through broken glass.

Broken glass.

My gaze drops to my swollen bloody palm full of shining splinters.

It hurts. 

I can feel that it hurts.

I can feel.

Aziraphale embraces me so tightly, I’m lucky I don’t need to breathe.

I can’t move. Can barely even blink.

Everything hurts. It’s familiar. It’s comforting.

And I’m used to hurting.

And I’ll march onwards unflinching.

And my Angel is looking at me aghast, his exhausted face all questions and concern. 

“Bastard”

He sniffs looking around for his handkerchief which was lost in the filth of our struggle.

I think I smirked. I can’t be sure. I don’t remember what my face was doing other than throbbing excruciatingly.

I’m not completely unforgivable. 

I’m not alone.

I’m just a bastard.

I can live with that.


End file.
